SRI PUSAPATI VIZIARAMA GAJAPATIRAJ MAHARAJA MANYA SULTAN BAHADURMAHARAJ OF VIJIANAGARAM BY HIS MUKTYAR, G APPAYYA PANTULU Vs. PUVVALA KANTAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the appellant, who is a zemindar, has, according to the finding of the lower Courts, raised the height of the bund of a tank in certain directions and narrowed the sluice with the result that the plaintiff s land which lies close to the water-spread of the tank has become liable to submersion more often than before. The Subordinate Judge has granted a decree giving the plaintiff an injunction directing the defendant to restore the bund of the tank to its former and usual height and the sluice in question to its former width. The appellant is also given an option, within four months from the date of the decree, to adopt any other means which might be at his command to prevent the plaintiff s land being submerged more often than it used to be before the acts of the defendant in question.

(2.) Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar, who appeared for the appellant, has strenuously argued, in the first place, that the finding of the Subordinate Judge, which confirms that of the District Munsif, is not sufficient to support a case of injunction. He argues that the finding of the lower Court amounts only to this, that, in an extraordinary year of rain, the land of the plaintiff would be liable to submersion owing to the action of his client. But that is not how we read the finding. What is found is that within six years since the act complained of has been done, for two successive years, the land of the plaintiff has been flooded, although there has been no abnormal rains during those years and the conclusion which the lower Appellate Court has come to is, that the defendant s act made the plaintiff s land liable to damage more often and to a greater extent in a year of heavy rain than it was before.

(3.) In our opinion, this finding is sufficient to support a case for injunction. It is not a case of injury to the plaintiff which is liable to occur at rare intervals. What the defendant has done is a standing source of danger to the plaintiff s land and the plaintiff is entitled to protection from such action.